But arrogant and unfounded as was the claim of Leo,—­that Peter, not Christ, was the rock on which the Church is founded,—­it was generally accepted by the bishops of the day.  Everything tended to confirm it, especially the universal idea of a necessary unity of the Church.  There must be a head of the Church on earth, and who could be lawfully that head other than the successor of the apostle to whom Christ had given the keys of heaven and hell?

But this claim, considering the age when it was first advanced, had the inspiration of genius.  It was most opportune.  The Bishop of Rome would soon have been reduced to the condition of other metropolitans had his dignity rested on the greatness of his capital.  He now became the interpreter of his own decrees,—­an arch-pontiff ruling by divine right.  His power became indefinite and unlimited.  Just in proportion to the depth of the religious sentiment of the newly converted barbarians would be his ascendancy over them; and the Germanic races were religious peoples like the early Greeks and Romans.  Tacitus points out this sentiment of religion as one of their leading characteristics.  It was not the worship of ancestors, as among the Aryan races until Grecian and Roman civilization was developed.  It was more like the worship of the invisible powers of Nature; for in the rock, the mountain, the river, the forest, the sun, the stars, the storms, the rude Teutonic mind saw a protecting or avenging deity.  They easily transferred to the Christian clergy the reverence they had bestowed on the old priests of Odin, of Freya, and of Thor.  Reverence was one of the great sentiments of our German ancestors.  It was only among such a people that an overpowering spiritual despotism could be maintained.  The Pope became to them the vicegerent of the great Power which they adored.  The records of the race do not show such another absorbing pietism as was seen in the monastic retreats of the Middle Ages, except among the Brahmans and Buddhists of India.  This religious fervor the popes were to make use of, to extend their empire.

And that nothing might be wanted to cement their power which had been thus assured, the Emperor Valentinian III.—­a monarch controlled by Leo—­passed in the year 445 this celebrated decree:—­

“The primacy of the Apostolic See having been established by the merit of Saint Peter, its founder, the sacred Council of Nice, and the dignity of the city of Rome, we thus declare our irrevocable edict, that all bishops, whether in Gaul or elsewhere, shall make no innovation without the sanction of the Bishop of Rome; and, that the Apostolic See may remain inviolable, all bishops who shall refuse to appear before the tribunal of the Bishop of Rome, when cited, shall be constrained to appear by the governor of the province.”